【One Piece】Dawn in the Darkness

"Wait, Usopp!" Qi hurriedly grabbed Usopp who was about to jump down. He did not forget that they encountered no obstacles in the clouds when they came up, which meant that the sky sea had no bottom. "I don't think you want to do this. We are above the clouds, which means that there is no bottom under the sky sea. In the end, you may fall directly to the sea surface where we came up."

"What!?" Usopp started to panic when he thought that if he had jumped down, he would have fallen directly into the sea on the ground. "Sky Island is too scary!"

After a while, Chopper, who was holding a telescope, suddenly shouted in panic, "Oh no! Someone sank a ship with a cannon!"

"Someone is coming towards our ship." Qi warned.

"The man who sank the ship is coming! His head is shaped like a bull!" Chopper added in horror, "and he's running over from the clouds!"

As soon as Chopper's voice fell, a guy wearing a bull-faced mask and wearing strange roller skates jumped from the clouds below to above Merry.

"Destroy you!"

Sanji held a cigarette in his mouth and took a fighting stance, looking gloomily at the strange man who suddenly appeared above the deck. "It seems that he is not a good person..."

"Come on if you dare!" Zoro drew out his knife and grinned.

"Want to fight?" Luffy also assumed a fighting stance, ready to punch at any time.

The next second, the man wearing the bull mask attacked Sanji directly. Sanji subconsciously defended himself, but the man wearing the bull mask was very fast, and Sanji's body had not yet adapted to the thin air at high altitudes, so his speed slowed down a lot. His attack did not successfully hit the man, but only kicked the man's shield.

But Sanji's attack still slowed down the man's attack, allowing Zoro to successfully block the man's attack with his sword and push him away from Merry. Luffy also stretched out his hand and punched the man's shield to pieces, knocking the man back.

The man's shield was shattered and his body slid back several meters, but he quickly steadied himself and raised the rocket launcher in his hand and aimed it at Merry.

Just as Luffy was about to inhale and turn into a rubber balloon to bounce the man's bullet back, an old voice suddenly came from above the man.

"That's it!"

A man in armor with a spear in his hand stood on the back of a large pink bird, blocking the man's rocket launcher and knocking the man back, falling into the empty sea below. Then the man in armor jumped onto the deck of Merry and began to introduce himself, "I am... the Sky Knight!"

The big pink bird with spots all over its body behind him also called out at this time, "Pete..."

Everyone looked at the knight standing on the deck, and only then did they notice that there was actually a white-bearded old man under the man's armor. However, he did not seem to be trying to sabotage Merry like the man just now. Instead, he proposed a deal. He said that he could provide help anytime and anywhere as long as they blew his whistle, but they had to pay 500 million Aigus coins for each time they blew the whistle.

It was at this time that they learned from the knight that they actually had other safer ways to get to the sky island rather than using the strong ocean currents which would either result in the annihilation of the entire army or the survival of all. Nami was slightly heartbroken upon hearing this news.

But there was some good news. At least after hearing that they came up on the strong ocean current, the knight gave them a chance to blow the whistle for free. Nami calmed herself down and solemnly took the whistle given by the knight in her hand. They had a chance to save their lives.

Then Nami, Usopp and Chopper began to argue about who should have the whistle to get help. Of course, Nami made it clear that no one else was qualified to have the whistle except the three of them, but in the end they couldn't argue it out. Finally, Nami decided to hang the whistle on the mast, and whoever of the three of them was in danger would blow it.

"So, he still hasn't revealed anything!" Robin said helplessly as he looked at the knight riding the spotted Pegasus that had transformed from a pink spotted bird and was far away.

"This is not going back to square one..."

"Forget it, let's keep moving forward!" Qi said, "Since there are people here, maybe we can find Sky Island soon."

After a while they saw something like a waterfall coming down from the clouds, and eventually they decided to go out and take a closer look at it.

"What should we do? There's a big cloud in front of it..." Nami said as she looked at the big cloud blocking their way.

"Since it's floating on the Sky Sea, it shouldn't be the Sky Sea," Sanji mused.

"It could be a cloud that looks like land, just like the islands we encounter in the sea." Qi speculated, "Since there are people living on the sky island, they can't live in the water, so there must be a place like an island for humans to live."

"Just try it and you'll know!" Luffy said with a grin, waving his fist and stretching his arm to hit the cloud in front of him. The next second his fist was bounced away by the cloud.

"Bounced away!" Luffy said in amazement. Thinking of something, Luffy happily bounced himself over and landed on the soft cloud. Luffy jumped happily on the cloud and shouted happily, "Oh! Look, this cloud can be sat on and will not sink at all. It's also very soft. How can it be so fun? Hahaha!"

"How awesome!" Chopper shouted in amazement, and then became eager to try and play together.

"I want to play too!!" Seeing Luffy having so much fun, Usopp immediately jumped off the boat excitedly and jumped towards the clouds with Chopper.

"But in this case, how is the ship going to pass through these towering clouds..." Nami ignored the people who were having fun and started thinking.

"Luffy, there's something good over there!" Usopp shouted excitedly, "There's a big door over there, right under the clouds of that waterfall!"

"Nami, there is a small path here. The boat should be able to pass through." Qi pointed to the passage on their side that was not completely blocked by clouds.

Under Nami's command, they quickly passed through the elastic clouds, and finally a huge door appeared in front of them. They came to the door, which was a star-shaped door combining white and gold. In front of the door hung a sign with the words "Gate of Heaven" written on it.

"It's so unlucky, that sign, it's like we're about to die..." Usopp said sweating as he looked at the sign.

"Haha, maybe we are already dead." Zoro teased with a smile, which made Usopp even more frightened.

"It's possible. That makes it easy to understand why this place is so strange." Sanji agreed.

Chopper, who heard their conversation, believed it easily and shouted in horror, "We are dead?!"

"Shut up, idiot!" Nami angrily hit Sanji and Zoro on the head. Their words caused panic among the timid people. "This joke is not funny at all!"

"There's someone over there." Qi reminded, and a wrinkled old woman pushed open the small door under the gate and came out.